Graphic Designer Casey Patrick Stringer sees art and design in everything. He blames it on his education at Mississippi State University, where even the computer-centered artists have to take all sorts of fundamental art classes.
Of course, he learned to love the fine arts, and now still works in oil paint, watercolor, photography, and even a little printmaking as a hobby.
The 30-year-old Starkville resident knew he wanted to do design work even in high school, where he would do designs for programs, t-shirts, and flyers for his class, and others. A teacher told him that he could actually do commercial art professionally, and after earning a bachelor of arts degree in graphic design, he found himself at University Screenprint in Starkville, where he”s been for six years.
What do you do at University Screenprint?
I help with design or art work that customers would want for t-shirts, business cards, cups or basically anything printable. I set up artwork and design work for projects. Sometimes people come in when planning things like class reunions, business conferences, club events, or weddings without a design ready. That”s where I come in.
What is your favorite thing about your job?
It”s something new everyday, it”s not mundane. Every day you”re doing something new for another group. It”s challenging; I was just recently working on the Cotton District Arts Festival. We produced t-shirts, vests, bags, aprons and banners. (From the original design), we ended up with about four different designs, that we had to make work for different things.
How do you do that?
First I have to look at what we are going to be printing on, if something is going to be on white, you want to make it more colorful and more eye-catching. If its darker, you have to play off the background color. To make a design work on multiple things, we basically come up with a big color logo first, then we pick what you like best about the primary design and take some colors and simplify it for bags or smaller items.
How did you get into the field?
I was always the kind of person that people would seek out advice for on that kind of stuff in high school. I enjoyed doing it and it was always more fun, and more like a project than it was work for me. It”s very challenging too, kind of like a puzzle.
What do you do outside of work?
(At MSU) we learned to find design work in everything and learn to love the fine art aspects of things. I still paint, I actually have about half a room at my house full of work, painting, prints, and a little photography. I”m planning on putting up stuff at next year”s Cotton District Arts fest.
What inspires your art?
Many of the painting and photo work that I”ve done have been about series of places that I”ve lived. I grew up in a place called the Golden Triangle in Tennessee, went to high school here in the Golden Triangle, and right after and during part of college, I lived in Beaumont, which is also known as the Golden Triangle. I”ve taken pictures of those places and blended them together, and I call it “My Triangle.”
Do you have any artists that inspire your work?
Chuck Close, does portraits of people on a large scale, like seven feet wide and tall is one of my inspirations. One of the things that makes it even more impressive to me is that he suffered a stroke and everyone thought that because it rendered him unable to walk, that he would make his works on a smaller scale after… but he (started to make) them even bigger after he suffered the disability.
What is a hard part about being an artist?
You”re constantly looking at your work as you”re working on it. Because you”re constantly looking at it, so you see all the very slight flaws. The people you do it for think it looks great, but since you”ve spent so much time with it.. it”s a very love-hate relationship. But I think that”s a universal artist thing.
What do you think you”ll be doing in the future?
I like my job, it gives me something to do, work on everyday that”s challenging. I like that it might be banners and election signs for a candidate one day and then an elementary school graduation the next. You have to switch designs from something very professional to something very kid friendly, and it keeps you on your toes. I also like the South, I”ve lived here most of my life, but one day, maybe I might open my own graphic design company.
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